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Videoconferencing

Video conferencing - what is it?

  • Videoconferencing delivers audio and video to bring people together irrespective of their geographical locations to meet in real tine,  to share ideas and content.
  • Zoom, one of several video conference solution at JCU, is available to all staff and students. Zoom interoperates with traditional video conference hardware (Cisco/Tandberg/Poly) enabling cross communication regardless of platform.
  • ZoomRoom, the modern workspaces for hybrid teams, Zoom Rooms bring HD video collaboration into any space – in the office, in the classroom, or at home – and enable in-person and remote participants to interact in real time.
  • Collaborate for teaching - View screencast wwhich demonstrates how to use Class Collaborate (formerly known as Blackboard Collaborate) as a Moderator to deliver and record information sessions, tutorials, lectures, meetings plus all the easy to use functions such as chat, whiteboard, file and application sharing, polling, breakout rooms and more.
  • MS Teams is widely used amongst staff for internal communications, however it does not directly interoperate with traditional video conference hardware (Cisco/Tandberg/Poly). MS Teams is used in JCU meeting rooms from late 2024 onwards.
  • Video sessions can be as simple as a conversation between two people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several sites (multi-point) with one or more participants in rooms of various sizes and complexity at different locations, sharing presentations in various formats.
  • Multi-point calls by Zoom and MS Teams are connected automatically by forwarding an invitation to each room's Outlook Calendar Resource (OCR).

JCU videoconference hardware systems (Cisco Rooms and Zoom Rooms) are located in Atherton, Bourketown, Cairns, Cloncurry, Longreach, Mackay, Mount Isa, Singapore, Thursday Island and Townsville.

Venues are fully integrated videoconferencing Cisco Rooms (90) and dedicated Zoom Rooms (86).

JCU Teaching Spaces (Supported by Digital Service Delivery team)

  • Small conference rooms - board room style set ups, are ideal for groups of 8 to 14 persons, where a large degree of interaction (audio, video, content sharing) is required between all participants..
  • Mediums sized presentation/lecture rooms - these room are typically accommodating student numbers in the range of 30-60 where some degree of interaction is desired.
  • Large theatres - facilities such as the Sir George Kneipp auditorium (492 seats), Crowther 1 (300), the Medical School theatre (295), Nursing Science theatres (200+) and the Science Place lecture theatre (150) are fitted with sizeable projector screens and voice reinforcement, suitable for presentations and lectures to the larger groups.
  • Equipment standard - Centrally bookable video conference enabled rooms at JCU are fitted with the following equipment:
    1. Single or dual display system (flat panels or projectors)
    2. Touch panel operation
    3. In house AiO desktop presenter PC
    4. Document cameras/visualizer
    5. Wireless presenter interface
    6. Microphones (Wireless microphones in the larger rooms)
    7. Hearing augmentation device
    8. HDMI Cable with adapters to connect laptops
  • Training - Experienced technicians are available to assist with customized training.

Connecting to Zoom sessions (meetings, presentations, lectures) requires a host to schedule the session.

Zoom sessions are connected following the procedures listed below:

  1. Cisco Room (traditional)
    1. The host forwards the invitation to all participants including videoconferencing@jcu.edu.au.
    2. Videoconferencing automates the connection in the room at the scheduled date/time.
    3. To avoid audio feedback, ensure all other connected devices in the room  (laptops, tablets and smart phones) are muted.
  2. Zoom Room
    1. The host forwards the invitation to all participants, including the dedicated Outlook Calendar Resource for the room, which automates the connection at the scheduled date/ time.
    2. To avoid audio feedback, ensure all other connected devices in the room  (laptops, tablets and smart phones) are muted.
  3. AV Room Presenter PC
    1. The host forwards the invitation to all participants.
    2. The participant logs in to the room PC, opens the JCU email application and connects by clicking the link contained in the invitation.
    3. JCU AV rooms are increasingly Hyflex enabled, which from an AV perspective means, the in room camera and microphone are connected to the room presenter PC  for easier setup and running  Zoom, MS Teams and Blackboard Collaborate sessions.
    4. Where Hyflex is not available, the inbuilt devices of the PC are used with their inherent limited coverage.
    5. To avoid audio feedback, ensure all other connected devices in the room  (laptops, tablets and smart phones) are muted.
  4. AV Room Laptop
    1. The host forwards the invitation to all participants
    2. To connect, the participant clicks the link contained in the invitation, which launches the Zoom client on the laptop.
    3. The laptop is connected to the AV display system by the provided cable, noting the inbuilt camera and microphone are used with their inherent limited coverage.
    4. To avoid audio feedback, ensure all other connected devices in the room  (laptops, tablets and smart phones) are muted.

Outlook calendar resources (OCR) are available for the purpose of automatically connecting Zoom and MS Teams sessions in ZoomRooms and MS Teams Rooms (MTR). The host creates an event and forwards the invitation to all participants including the OCR.  

The template used for creating the resource is ocr-campus-building-room@jcu.edu.au for example ocr-tsv-506-101@jcu.edu.au